The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; French: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, OCDE) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum of countries describing themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seeking answers to common problems, identify good practices and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index (HDI) and are regarded as developed countries. OECD is an official United Nations Observer.[1]

In 1948, the OECD originated as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC),[2] led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan (which was rejected by the Soviet Union and its satellite states[3]). This would be achieved by allocating United States financial aid and implementing economic programs for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. (Similar reconstruction aid was sent to the war-torn Republic of China and post-war Korea, but not under the name "Marshall Plan".[4])

The OECD's headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris, France.[7] The OECD is funded by contributions from member states at varying rates,[8] and had a total budget of €363 million in 2015.[9]

The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) was formed in 1948 to administer American and Canadian aid in the framework of the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.[10] It started its operations on 16 April 1948, and originated from the work done by the Committee of European Economic Co-operation in 1947 in preparation for the Marshall Plan. Since 1949, it was headquartered in the Château de la Muette in Paris, France. After the Marshall Plan ended, the OEEC focused on economic issues.[2]

By the end of the 1950s, with the job of rebuilding Europe effectively done, some leading countries felt that the OEEC had outlived its purpose, but could be adapted to fulfill a more global mission. It would be a hard-fought task, and after several sometimes fractious meetings at the Hotel Majestic in Paris starting in January 1960, a resolution was reached to create a body that would deal not only with European and Atlantic economic issues, but devise policies to assist less developed countries. This reconstituted organisation would bring the US and Canada, who were already OEEC observers, on board as full members. It would also set to work straight away on bringing in Japan.[11]

During the next 12 years Japan, Finland, Australia, and New Zealand also joined the organisation. Yugoslavia had observer status in the organisation starting with the establishment of the OECD until its dissolution as a country.[12]

In 1989, after the Revolutions of 1989, the OECD started to assist countries in Central Europe (especially the Visegrád Group) to prepare market economy reforms. In 1990, the Centre for Co-operation with European Economies in Transition (now succeeded by the Centre for Cooperation with Non-Members) was established, and in 1991, the Programme "Partners in Transition" was launched for the benefit of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland.[12][13] This programme also included a membership option for these countries.[13] As a result of this, Poland,[14] Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, as well as Mexico and South Korea[15] became members of the OECD between 1994 and 2000.

In the 1990s, a number of European countries, now members of the European Union, expressed their willingness to join the organisation. In 1995, Cyprus applied for membership, but, according to the Cypriot government, it was vetoed by Turkey.[16] In 1996, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania signed a Joint Declaration expressing willingness to become full members of the OECD.[17]Slovenia also applied for membership that same year.[18] In 2005, Malta applied to join the organisation.[19] The EU is lobbying for admission of all EU member states.[20]Romania reaffirmed in 2012 its intention to become a member of the organisation through the letter addressed by the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta to OECD Secretary-General José Ángel Gurría.[21] In September 2012, the government of Bulgaria confirmed it will apply for full membership before the OECD Secretariat.[22]

In 2003, the OECD established a working group headed by Japan's Ambassador to the OECD Seiichiro Noboru to work out a strategy for the enlargement and co-operation with non-members. The working group proposed that the selection of candidate countries to be based on four criteria: "like-mindedness", "significant player", "mutual benefit" and "global considerations". The working group's recommendations were presented at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting on 13 and 14 May 2004. Based on these recommendations work, the meeting adopted an agreement on operationalisation of the proposed guidelines and on the drafting of a list of countries suitable as potential candidates for membership.[12] As a result of this work, on 16 May 2007, the OECD Ministerial Council decided to open accession discussions with Chile, Estonia, Israel, Russia and Slovenia and to strengthen co-operation with Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa through a process of enhanced engagement.[23] Chile, Slovenia, Israel and Estonia all became members in 2010.[24][25]

In 2011, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia expressed the country's willingness to join the organisation during a speech at the OECD headquarters.[26]

In 2013, the OECD decided to open membership talks with Colombia and Latvia. It also announced its intention to open talks with Costa Rica and Lithuania in 2015.[27] Latvia became a full member on 1 July 2016.[28]

On January 19, 2017, during his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković stated that "Croatia wants to be part of a new wave of OECD enlargement", adding that "it would give more legitimacy to Croatia especially in regards to the international investors".[34]

The OECD defines itself as a forum of countries committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a setting to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices, and co-ordinate domestic and international policies.[35] Its mandate covers economic, environmental, and social issues. The organisation works through consensus to develop policy recommendations and other "soft law" instruments to encourage policy reform in member countries. Occasionally, these instruments do lead to binding treaties. While many of the organisation's legal instruments are non-binding, a rigorous peer review process helps ensure that members live up to their commitments. In this work, the OECD cooperates with businesses, with trade unions and with other representatives of civil society. Collaboration at the OECD regarding taxation, for example, has fostered the growth of a global web of bilateral tax treaties.[citation needed]

Another investment-related instrument from the OECD is the Policy Framework for Investment, which looks across 12 dimensions to provide policy recommendations for improving a country's investment climate. The Policy Framework for Investment was updated in 2015 under the co-chairmanship of Finland and Myanmar.[36]

Among other areas, the OECD has taken a role in co-ordinating international action on corruption and bribery, creating the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, which came into effect in February 1999. It has been ratified by forty-three countries, including all OECD Members plus Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Russia, and South Africa.[37] The OECD has also constituted an anti-spam task force, which submitted a detailed report, with several background papers on spam problems in developing countries, best practices for ISPs, e-mail marketers, etc., appended. It works on the information economy[38] and the future of the Internet economy.[39]

The OECD administers and publishes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is a regular assessment of the attainment of 15-year-olds in three areas of knowledge, which, it is said, allows the performance of educational systems to be examined and compared on a common measure across countries.

The OECD publishes and updates a model tax convention that serves as a template for bilateral negotiations regarding tax coordination and cooperation. This model is accompanied by a set of commentaries that reflect OECD-level interpretation of the content of the model convention provisions. In general, this model allocates the primary right to tax to the country from which capital investment originates (i.e., the home, or resident country) rather than the country in which the investment is made (the host, or source country). As a result, it is most effective as between two countries with reciprocal investment flows (such as among the OECD member countries), but can be very unbalanced when one of the signatory countries is economically weaker than the other (such as between OECD and non-OECD pairings).

Since 1998, the OECD has led a charge against harmful tax practices, principally targeting the activities of tax havens (while principally accepting the policies of its member countries, which would tend to encourage tax competition). These efforts have been met with mixed reaction: The primary objection is the sanctity of tax policy as a matter of sovereign entitlement.[40] The OECD maintains a "blacklist" of countries it considers uncooperative in the drive for transparency of tax affairs and the effective exchange of information, officially called "The List of Uncooperative Tax Havens".[41] In May 2009, all remaining countries were removed from the list.[42]

On 22 October 2008, at an OECD meeting in Paris, 17 countries led by France and Germany decided to draw up a new blacklist of tax havens. The OECD has been asked to investigate around 40 new tax havens in the world where undeclared revenue is hidden and that host many of the non-regulated hedge funds that have come under fire during the 2008 financial crisis. Germany, France, and other countries called on the OECD to specifically add Switzerland to a blacklist of countries that encourage tax fraud.[43]

On October 29, 2014, in Berlin, during the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, all OECD and G20 countries, as well as most major international financial centres, signed a “multilateral competent authority agreement” that will activate the automatic sharing of financial data for tax purposes.[44][45] Under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the United States will automatically exchange information with other countries beginning in 2015. In 2017, 58 jurisdictions of the "early adopters"—the UK, Spain, France, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Germany, Italy, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Ireland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, San Marino, Seychelles, Argentina, and South Africa—start to share information automatically. In 2018, another 35 jurisdictions, including Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Monaco, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Switzerland begin sharing information.

The OECD publishes books, reports, statistics, working papers and reference materials. All titles and databases published since 1998 can be accessed via OECD iLibrary.

The OECD Library & Archives collection dates from 1947, including records from the Committee for European Economic Co-operation (CEEC) and the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), predecessors of today's OECD. External researchers can consult OECD publications and archival material on the OECD premises by appointment.

The OECD releases between 300 and 500 books each year. The publications are updated accordingly to the OECD iLibrary. Most books are published in English and French. The OECD flagship[vague] titles include:

The OECD Economic Outlook, published twice a year. It contains forecast and analysis of the economic situation of the OECD member countries.

The OECD Factbook, published yearly and available online, as an iPhone app and in print. The Factbook contains more than 100 economic, environmental and social indicators, each presented with a clear definition, tables and graphs. The Factbook mainly focuses on the statistics of its member countries and sometimes other major additional countries. It is freely accessible online and delivers all the data in Excel format via StatLinks.

The OECD Communications Outlook and the OECD Internet Economy Outlook (formerly the Information Technology Outlook), which rotate every year. They contain forecasts and analysis of the communications and information technology industries in OECD member countries and non-member economies.

In 2007 the OECD published Human Capital: How what you know shapes your life, the first book in the OECD Insights series. This series uses OECD analysis and data to introduce important social and economic issues to non-specialist readers. Other books in the series cover sustainable development, international trade and international migration.

All OECD books are available on the OECD iLibrary, the online bookshop or OECD Library & Archives.[n 1]

OECD Observer, an award-winning magazine[n 2] launched in 1962.[46] The magazine appeared six times a year until 2010, and became quarterly in 2011 with the introduction of the OECD Yearbook,[n 3] launched for the 50th anniversary of the organisation.[47] The online and mobile[48] editions are updated regularly. News, analysis, reviews, commentaries and data on global economic, social and environmental challenges. Contains listing of the latest OECD books, plus ordering information.[49] An OECD Observer Crossword was introduced in Q2 2013.[50]

The OECD member countries, each represented by a delegation led by an ambassador. Together, they form the OECD Council. Member countries act collectively through Council (and its Standing Committees) to provide direction and guidance to the work of Organisation.

The OECD Substantive Committees, one for each work area of the OECD, plus their variety of subsidiary bodies. Committee members are typically subject-matter experts from member and non-member governments. The Committees oversee all the work on each theme (publications, task forces, conferences, and so on). Committee members then relay the conclusions to their capitals.

The OECD Secretariat, led by the Secretary-General (currently Ángel Gurría), provides support to Standing and Substantive Committees. It is organised into Directorates, which include about 2,500 staff.

Delegates from the member countries attend committees' and other meetings. Former Deputy Secretary-GeneralPierre Vinde (sv) estimated in 1997 that the cost borne by the member countries, such as sending their officials to OECD meetings and maintaining permanent delegations, is equivalent to the cost of running the secretariat.[51] This ratio is unique among inter-governmental organisations.[citation needed] In other words, the OECD is more a persistent forum or network of officials and experts than an administration.

The OECD regularly holds minister-level meetings and forums as platforms for a discussion on a broad spectrum of thematic issues relevant to the OECD charter, members and non-member states.[52]

Noteworthy meetings include:

The yearly Ministerial Council Meeting, with the Ministers of Economy of all member countries and the candidates for enhanced engagement among the countries.

The annual OECD Forum, which brings together leaders from business, government, labour, civil society and international organisations. Held every year since June 2000, the OECD Forum takes the form of conferences and discussions, is open to public participation and is held in conjunction with the MCM.

Thematic Ministerial Meetings, held among Ministers of a given domain (i.e., all Ministers of Labour, all Ministers of Environment, etc.).

The bi-annual World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policies, which does not usually take place in the OECD. This series of meetings has the ambition to measure and foster progress in societies.

OECD Eurasia Week which includes several high-level policy dialogue discussions to share best practices and experiences in addressing common development and economic challenges in Eurasia.[53]

Exchanges between OECD governments benefit from the information, analysis, and preparation of the OECD Secretariat. The secretariat collects data, monitors trends, and analyses and forecasts economic developments. Under the direction and guidance of member governments, it also researches social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, education, agriculture, technology, taxation, and other areas.

The work of the secretariat is financed from the OECD's annual budget, which was €374 million in 2017 (around US$442 million). This includes a core "Part I" budget funded by all members and a "Part II" budget for programs of more limited interest to members. The budget is funded by the member countries based on a formula related to the size of each member's gross national product. The largest contributor is the United States, which contributes about one fifth of the budget, followed by Japan with 9.4%, Germany with 7.4% and the UK and France with around 5.5%.[54] The OECD governing Council sets the budget and scope of work on a biennial basis.

Representatives of the 35 OECD member countries and a number of observer countries meet in specialised committees on specific policy areas, such as economics, trade, science, employment, education or financial markets. There are about 200 committees, working groups and expert groups. Committees discuss policies and review progress in the given policy area.[57]

Colombia: In May 2013, the OECD decided to open accession negotiations with Colombia.[81] On October 25, 2013, the OECD officially launched Colombia's accession process.[82]

Costa Rica: In May 2013, the OECD declared its intention to open accession negotiations with Costa Rica in 2015.[81] On 9 April 2015, the OECD decided to open accession negotiations with Costa Rica.[83]

Lithuania: In May 2013, the OECD declared its intention to open accession negotiations with Lithuania in 2015.[81] On 9 April 2015, the OECD decided to open accession negotiations with Lithuania.[83]

Russia: In May 2007, the OECD decided to open accession negotiations with Russia.[23] In March 2014, the OECD halted membership talks in response to Russia's role in the 2014 Crimean crisis.[32][33]

Currently[when?], 25 non-members participate as regular observers or full participants in OECD Committees. About 50 non-members are engaged in OECD working parties, schemes or programmes.[citation needed] The OECD conducts a policy dialogue and capacity building activities with non-members (Country Programmes, Regional Approaches and Global Forums) to share their views on best policy practices and to bear on OECD's policy debate. The OECD's Global Relations Secretariat develops and oversees the strategic orientations of the relations with non-members.[citation needed]

On 16 May 2007, the OECD Ministerial Council decided to strengthen OECD's co-operation with Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa, through a process of enhanced engagement.[23] The countries listed are key partners to the OECD. The countries contribute to the OECD's work in a sustained and comprehensive manner by direct and active participation in substantive bodies of the Organisation determined by mutual interest.[84]

On 30 May 2017, Brazil formalised a request to join the organisation.[85][86]

The OECD explores the possibilities for enhanced co-operation with selected countries and regions of strategic interest to the OECD, giving priority to South East Asia with a view to identifying countries for possible membership.[citation needed] It has country programmes with Kazakhstan, Morocco, Peru, and Thailand.[87]

The OECD has been criticised by several civil society groups and developing countries. The main criticism has been the narrowness of the OECD because of its limited membership to a select few rich nations.[88] In 1997–1998, the draft Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was heavily criticised by several non-governmental organisations and developing countries. Many critics argued that the agreement would threaten protection of human rights, labor and environmental standards, and the least developed countries. A particular concern was that the MAI would result in a race to the bottom among countries willing to lower their labor and environmental standards to attract foreign investment. Also the OECD's actions against competitive tax practices has raised criticism. The primary objection is the sanctity of tax policy as a matter of sovereign entitlement.[40]

The following table shows various data for OECD member states, including area, population, economic output and income inequality, as well as various composite indices, including human development, viability of the state, rule of law, perception of corruption, economic freedom, state of peace, freedom of the press and democratic level.

a The FSI index supplies no figure for Israel per se, but rather supplies an average (79.7) for "Israel (and West Bank)."

b OECD total used for indicators 1 through 3; OECD weighted average used for indicator 4; OECD unweighted average used for indicators 5 through 13.

Note: The colours indicate the country's global position in the respective indicator. For example, a green cell indicates that the country is ranked in the upper 25% of the list (including all countries with available data).

^"OECD iLibrary (formerly: Source OECD)". Ontario Council of University Libraries. 28 November 2011. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 29 January 2017. OECD iLibrary is OECD's Online Library for Books, Papers and Statistics and the gateway to OECD's analysis and data. It has replaced SourceOECD in July 2010.